Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
